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Primavera Sound 2010 Review by Admin
The Primavera Sound Festival set along the Mediterranean Sea in an urban park in Barcelona, Spain marks the triumphant evolution from summer touring festivals to summer destination festivals. Primavera Sound in its 10th year has perfected its current formula of hosting promising indie musicians alongside pioneering artists, all in a multicultural European city located along the Med and guarded by the Collserola mountain range.
As for the venue itself – the Parc Del Forum is exactly the type of urban park that pulls off an incredible music festival. I must point out that the venue is quit dynamic, as it was hosted an Andalucían Fair a month ago which largely consisted of Sevillana Dancers and Seafood restaurants. For Primavera, the park fit 10 stages across the entire grounds, which all had a unique format and size, and provided comfortable space to get close to the stage, sit within an amphitheater, or just lay out on the grass.
The thousands of attendees from all over the world echoed the diverse lineup of artists hailing from across the globe. However, without a doubt the Spanish vibe was undeniably present from the Sounds from Spain mini-festival held at one of the stages to the delightful gazpacho and jamon iberico tasting.
Across the three day festival – I was lucky to see great sets from many bands, some whom I have seen before and other I plan to see may more times and hopefully next year again at Primavera Sound.
Day 1 – Thursday.
I could clearly hear Patrick Stickles' of Titus Andronicus voice pouring out of the Pitchfork Stage all the way to the entry gates as I geared for the first set of the weekend. Titus Andronicus brought their album "The Monitor" to life on stage with their anthemic songs and the crowd responded with sing-a-long and a constant flow of fist pumps. I would be remiss in not mentioning the last time I heard Patrick sing was at a community center in Glen Rock, NJ over 9 years ago while still in high school – he's been rocking for a while. . Later at the same stage the Smith Westerns brought their groovy garage-rock feel to the stage – reminding everyone once again to rock and have a good time.
At the Ray-Ban Stage The XX lulled me
lodic songs came out as clean and precise as they do on record, but I think their sound would exude an even greater "cool" in the small club format or perhaps a church basement in North London. Next up, Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene implored the crowd to have a good time and drink lots of water, and while the crowd hesitated to swap in H20 for San Miguel beer, they responded to the furious guitars, drums and vocals of BSS. I think at one point there were 10 people on stage all clearly maestros of their own instruments and somehow managing to produce cohesive songs filled with crescendos. "It's All gonna break" and the new instrumental sensation "Meet me in the Basement" showcased their loud building sound across guitars, strings (provided by Owen Pallet), horns, and drums and skill to sooth
e and rock a festival.
By the time BSS finished their set, almost all fans migrated towards the San Miguel stage for one of the weekend's headliners Pavement. Opening with their semi-commercial hit "Cut Your hair" the audience lit up to Stephen Malkmus' shredding guitar and echoed back their own "ooh-ooh-oohs". Pavement supplied a giddy crowd a run through of classics from Slanted and Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. During "In the Mouth a Desert" the audience couldn't cease jumping, dancing, and mirroring the huge grins strewn across the members of Pavement.
Pavement' set could have been the perfect nightcap if Delorean didn't have a 2:30 set scheduled back on the Pitchfork stage. I took in one more set from these Balearic-dance rockers hailing from the Basque region of Spain. Their songs like "Seasun" and "Endless Sunset" reminded us all that we were in Barcelona, Spain, steps away from the Me
diterranean Sea, and embarking on a great summer.
More to Come on Friday and Saturday from the Primavera Sound Festival.


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Turn your Bibles to Acts 19. Verses 8 to 20 is our text for the continuation of what we began two weeks ago. And the Holy Spirit certainly is right on time. And the subject we are talking about is "Exorcism: True or False."
As we come to chapter 19 of Acts, the reason we're kind of featuring the area of exorcism is because in the middle of this passage we find the word "exorcist" in verse 13, where it appears for the only time in the New Testament. And so kind of taking that as our lead thought, using that as a basis of introduction, we have talked a little bit about exorcism. Now, it's also important for us to make some statements about it because today, in Christian circles there is a very obvious preoccupation with demons and quote-unquote "Christian exorcism." Now, we have done studies in the past trying to cover the subject of demons, and Christians, and the whole area of demon possession, and all of that; and so what I'm going to say this morning will be a continuation of what we said two weeks ago but may not include everything on the subject.
Now, in Ephesians 2:2, as a point of introduction, we find the characterization of every man since the fall and before conversion. Paul says, "You walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience."
The prince of the power of the air is Satan. He is called the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience. From the time of the fall, all men have become Satan's tools. They're born into the world operating, functioning in response to satanic impulse. Man is a slave, then, to Satan and his demons. Like the ship is at the command of the pilot who turns and directs it as he wills, so is the life of a man driven by the will of Satan.
Now, Satan rules men usually two ways, and these are very general. There may be others, but these are just two general thoughts. First of all, he rules men by virtue of their understanding. "The natural man understandeth not the things of God." So the natural man, the man without Christ, without God, is left with only the information which is available to him apart from God. And that really makes up all of the information that Satan uses and can use, even though some of it is God's proof. And so Satan rules the understanding. In fact, is says in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that, "The god of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not." Satan blinds the mind. That is, he rules the understanding.
The second thing that Satan dominates in the unregenerate man is the will. He rules the understanding and the will. Though he cannot make the will act, he can certainly force it. Though he cannot make you do something, he can certainly draw you into that by temptation. John 8:44, "Jesus said to the Pharisees, "The lusts of your father, you will do." And their father, of course, was the devil. Satan then dominates men by controlling the information that they have and by controlling the will that they exercise.
Now, this is the predicament of every man. And it is precisely at this point that Jesus Christ comes with power to free men. Jesus came into the world according to 1 John 3:8, "For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil." And in Hebrews 2:14, again it says that Christ came to destroy the devil himself. His works and his person.
Now, as we saw in our last study, Jesus from the very beginning is set against Satan; and we can know victory over Satan only insofar as we yield to the strength that is His strength. Ephesians 6, Paul says, "Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might." Our only strength is in Christ, and Christ came to give us victory over the enemy.
Now, when Jesus arrived in this world in His ministry, He first of all began by showing His power over Satan from the very start. Even at His birth, right? Satan tried to eliminate Him at His birth and couldn't do it. But the first thing that happened to Jesus after His baptism, which was the point of inauguration into His ministry, the first that happened - immediately after His baptism, He was led into the wilderness. Not by Satan but by Whom? The Spirit of God. Why? Because at the very beginning of His ministry, it was gonna be made known that He had victory over Satan. Satan tempted Him three times and lost out every time. And Jesus began with establishing victory over Satan, and He went all through His life the same way.
When He came to the cross, it looked like Satan was the winner, but he wasn't. He took the blow to his head at the cross. And the cross, according to Colossians 2, was that great victory whereby principalities and powers were made subject to Christ. And 1 Peter 3: 18 and 22 says the same thing. He brought angels and authorities into subjection to Him at the cross. So from the beginning of His ministry to the end of His ministry, He exhibited victory over Satan. Now, this victory was seen not only in the beginning and the end of His ministry, but all through it as He dealt with Satan in terms of authority. He cast out demons all the way along, didn't He, as we saw last time?
And He even gave that power to His disciples. On occasion, they also in His name and by His power cast out demons. In the book of Acts, as the early church began, we see it as we've studied through that the apostles again had the power to cast out demons. They had victory over Satan. Now, the purpose of this was of course in apostolic era to confirm the Word of God. That people might know the Word of God was authentic, God attended it with the miracles such as casting out demons.
Now, let me add to this in continuing just a review with some new insights thrown in. The power then of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only thing that can overrule Satan. Satan is the prince of this world. He dominates it because he dominates men's understanding and he dominates men's will. The only thing that can overrule Satan is the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no human magic, there's no sorcery, there's no power, there's no exorcism, there's no ritual, there is no ceremony, there is no formula that can extract Satan, that can overrule Satan's power. Not even the Name of Jesus used as a gimmick will work, and we'll see that in this passage.
Now, last time I tried to make several strong points. Let me just make very clear this fact. The New Testament accounts of the casting out of demons revealed this: It is always a matter of authority, never of ritual. All cases of the expulsion of demons in the New Testament were on the basis of authoritative statements rather than ritual. You say what do I mean. I mean rather than all long, drawn-out sessions of trying to get that demon out with uses of formulas or whatever else, it was simply the statement of Christ, "Out!" And the demons were gone. Now, that was authority, not ritual. Never a formula, never an exorcism, always a word of authority.
Matthew 8:16, "Of Christ it was said, 'He cast out spirits with a word.'"
Now, you say, "Well, John, what about Matthew 17:21, where it says that, 'these come out not by fasting and prayer.'" All right, let's take that. That in the first place was before the cross. So it could be that Matthew 17:21 was the typical pattern for the release of demons during the Old Testament age, that it was a matter like anything else, like healing or any trouble that anybody had; when this thing came about, the believing people in the Old Testament age were to pray and fast and beseech God to act in behalf of the individual.
Let me give you another insight. Matthew 17:21 doesn't appear in the best manuscripts. And as I said, even if you want to include Matthew 17:21 it seems to be an Old Testament pattern rather than a New Testament pattern. It does seem best to at least accept the principal of Matthew 17:21, even if we can't accept its conclusion in the text. The reason it seems best to accept the principal is because in Mark 9:29, the Scripture says in the comparative passage, "This kind can come forth but by nothing but by prayer." So it seems as though the Old Testament pattern, the pattern up to the time of Christ, was that demons could be cast out by God answering the prayers of faithful saints.
Nowhere in all of the New Testament, beloved, nowhere - especially of course in the epistles. The epistles give everything we need really for the Christian life - nowhere in the New Testament is there any exorcism of demons from a non-Christian or a Christian. No.
You say, "Well, John, in Jesus' day, how did a non-Christian get rid of demons?" Well, we saw sometimes where Christ just walked up and cast 'em out, right? You say, "Well, what about other non-Christians, if they had demons, how could they get rid of - how could they get rid of demons? People who didn't believe, they could get rid of demons by believing. You say, "Well, in this age, then, how do non-Christians get rid of demons?" Well, I think there's only one way; that's to come to Jesus Christ. You see, if you want to really get technical about it, you say, "Well, what about all the unsaved people in the world? Are they all demon possessed?" Well, at the risk of making a blanket statement, let me say this. They're certainly all under the control of Satan. Right? The question of demon possession is just a technicality. Hell is gonna be the same for the unregenerate man no matter what kind of relationship he had to demons, particularly or non-particularly in this age.
But the question is this: If you take a non-Christian individual today, what does the Bible say about getting rid of his demons? Nothing. But I'll tell you one thing, if he comes to Jesus Christ, repents of his sin, confesses Christ as his savior, Christ'll clean his life out. Do you believe that?
You say, "Well, what about the Christian, John? Can a Christian be a partner with a demon?" Yeah, according to 1 Corinthians 10. That's really being duped by Satan for a Christian to go that far. But what happened in Corinth was some of the Christians were coming to the fellowship of the table of the Lord, and then they go out and go back to their pagan religion. And when they go back to their pagan religion, Paul says, "You're fellowshipping with demons!" 1 Corinthians 10:20, listen. "I say the things which the Gentiles sacrifice. They sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I would not that you should have fellowship with demons."
They were actually having a partnership with demons! He says, "You can't drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You can't be partakers of the Lord's table and the table of demons."
But what about this bunch? Now, they've got this problem right now. They're fellowshipping with demons and they're Christians; what's gonna happen to them? Let me show you the solution.
1 Corinthians 11:27. "Wherefore, —" and you remember they had violated the Lord's Table - "Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." In other words, some of these people were fellowshipping with demons and then coming to the Lord's Table! Now, you say, "What are you gonna do? Are we gonna get a big group of people and get rid of all their demons and have a big, Christian exorcism? How we gonna help these people?" Watch this. Verse 28. "Let a man examine -" what's the next word - "himself. And so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup." Verse 31. "For if we would judge -" what's the next word? - "ourselves, we should not be judged."
Beloved, listen to this. This is the point I've been trying to make in this message and the message before. You take care of your own life before God in the area of holiness, and demons have no way that they can bother you. That's the point! We don't need to run around and have the demon of fingernail biting and post nasal drip cast out of us. We don't need to be preoccupied with all kinds of long, drawn-out sessions of the Christian exorcism using the Name of Jesus like a formula. Beloved, I just believe this: That the Bible says here's a case of people who are having fellowship with demons and Paul simply says, "You examine yourself, and you enact judgment in your own heart. You bring about confession and repentance in your own life, and man, you're acceptable."
Listen, and I'm not - at the risk of making too many points, let me make one point - and I don't want it to go any further than this one point. This: I don't need you as other Christians to take care of my own holiness. Do you understand what I'm saying? That, I can take care of myself. That's between God and me. Now, I may need you to rebuke my sin, but it's up to me to be honest enough to confess and repent of it. That's between me and God.
And I don't care whether - I asked somebody this last time. I said, "What is worse, to tell a white lie or to be infested with seven devils?" "Oh, seven devils!" I said, "Why is it worse?" Well, he wasn't too sure. I'm not so sure it makes any difference; it's all sin. So how do you get rid of the problem that you get with telling a lie? Simply confess it, turn from it, repent from it. How do you get rid of the same problem with seven devils? Same thing: Submit to the Holy Spirit, confess your sin, repent, and allow the Spirit of God to cleanse your life, and off you go. The same thing.
So don't ever get the idea that if all these devils get to you, you're gonna be stuck and you're gonna have to have some great big eight-hour sweat session to get rid of 'em. That's something you can take care of in your own life. Let a man examine himself. These people were fellowshipping with demons, but they had the resources within them to have victory over Satan.
John's statement, "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world." You have Him in completeness in you. You have all things pertaining to life in God when you're complete in Him. Well, for a non-Christian in this age to get rid of a demon, he has to come to Jesus Christ. For a Christian to get rid of problems with demons, all he has to do is confess and submit to the Word and the Spirit. That's all. Our victory depends on personal commitment to the principles of holiness.
We had this illustrated to us when we were working with this one girl who had all these devils that were speaking, and all this thing was going on, and the phenomenon was very unusual; and I tried to cast those demons out. "Get out!" You know? "Name of the Word!" They didn't go. Some of the other guys on the staff tried, and they couldn't do it either, which made me feel better. But none of us could get 'em out.
Let me give you a simple statement. All of the efforts to cast out demons are useless if that person doesn't confess and repent of sin. Okay? Listen to this, then. If the person confesses and repents of sin, all of the efforts to cast out demons are unnecessary. So if you want to be real clear about it, it's never a question of casting out the demons. It's a question of repenting of the sins. If the person involved repents of the sin that allowed Satan to get a grip on them, then you don't need somebody there doing all this other stuff. If they won't repent of the sin, then it doesn't matter what you do! You stand there 'til you're blue in the face trying to cast out demons; but if that person's harboring prolonged sin in their life, those demons have a place. Well, that's all we're trying to say.
Today, many Christians have become so preoccupied with Satan and so preoccupied with demons, and now Christians are having these new deliverance ministries that are growing up where you can go and get delivered. One guy had to pay $3,500.00 to get delivered. Found out he didn't get delivered at all; he got bilked.
Listen, do you believe Christ has all authority over demons and He lives in you? You have the resources; believe me, you do. Believe me. And Jesus even said in Matthew 12 that He cast out demons by the Holy Spirit, and He lives in you. The only issue in the Christian's life is the issue of yieldedness to the holiness of God and yieldedness to the Spirit that eliminates Satan's power. So you don't need to go somewhere and have a great, bit, long, drawn-out thing.
And you say, "Well, you mean that we should never have Christians come around and pray?" Yeah, well, maybe that's all right, but maybe they ought to be really talking about sin, not demons. Maybe we need to rebuking sin; maybe we need to be getting people to deal with sin.
I think so many times this whole thing of demons is a big copout. "Well, the demon made me do it, the demon made me do it." Satan. You're not dealing with your own sin. You're not dealing with the issue of your nature. Your old sin nature. Confession, repentance, submission to the Word, submission to the Spirit removes the power of Satan.
Let me illustrate this. Turn to Ephesians 6. Verse 12. "It's clear that we're going to struggle with demons as Christians for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
All right, it's very clear then that we're gonna be struggling against demons, right? That's clear; it's exactly what it says in that verse. Now, if a Christian's gonna struggle with demons, where's he gonna get the victory? Is he gonna have to have 24 Christians come and go through all kinds of Christian exorcism? What's gonna happen?
Listen, verse 13. "Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand an evil day. Stand, therefore, having your loins girded about with truth." Verse 15. "Your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one."
Can you handle Satan? You sure can when you get the armor on, right? You see, here's a case of Christians struggling with demons. And what's the solution? The solution isn't your friends coming to help you; the solution is you. Right? Putting on the righteousness.
The last thing, verse 17, taking the Word. Faith. All of these things, which are available to every Christian, are the resource which gives victory over Satan. It's all ours, beloved.
Just another thought on this. Of all of the ministries of the body, of all of the responsibilities that we have toward one another, there is no statement or command to go around and cast demons out of each other! It says love one another, teach one another, edify one another, admonish one another, nurture one another, comfort one another, build up one another, reprove one another, rebuke one another, and so forth and so forth and so forth; but it doesn't say cast demons out of one another.
That's - beloved, I can comfort you and so forth and so on, but you don't need me to take care of Satan in your life. I can't do that, 'cause I can't be holy for you. You got it? That's your problem! Now, I can rebuke your sin, and I can give you wise counsel about your sin, and I can admonish you about your sin, but I can't be holy for you. And if you're gonna deal with Satan, that's yours to do! And if I do all the exorcism in the world in the Name of Jesus Christ and there's still harbored in your life, it's unnecessary - I mean, it's ineffective - and if there's no sin in your life, then it's unnecessary. If you have confessed and repented and submitted to the Truth of God, you're clean.
Oh, you don't have anything to fear. No. You have all victory over Satan. Well, that's a whole lot of introduction.
Go back to 19. I hope you got what I was shooting at; I'm concerned when we get all out of balance on this. So many people are so worried about the negative, they've forgotten the positive. The apostle Paul said, "I just want to do this. I want to know Him." I want to know Him.
Well, Acts 19. Paul's on his third missionary journey, he comes to Ephesus. Ephesus is the heart of the Roman province of Asia Minor, great city, location of the temple of Diana, or Artemis, temple where there was sorcery, exorcism, magicians, orgies; the whole bit was there in Ephesus. Paul comes into town, got some tools with him. Tools to make tents, tools to fix up leather, but most of all, the greatest tool he had was the Word of God. And the key to understanding verses 8 to 20 is in verse 20. "So mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed." Don't you love that?
You know the greatest thing we have to overpower Satan? Right here, isn't it? David said, "Thy Word have I hid in my heart that -" what? - "I might not sin against Thee." The Word! You are clean through the Word, right? You are clean through the Word. Saturated with it.
Well, Paul comes into Ephesus, and he's got the Word of God. Of course, it wasn't written down then; God poured it through him, but he had the Word. And when the Word prevails, there were mighty things going on, believe me.
Let's look at the Word of God and its influence on Ephesus. It's proclamation, it's confirmation, it's competition, it's conviction, it's domination. First of all in reviewing, it's proclamation. The first thing, the Word arrived and was proclaimed, verse 8. "He went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the Kingdom of God." If you compare Acts 28:30 and 31, you'll see the things concerning the Kingdom of God are the things concerning Jesus Christ as well. So he spoke about God's rule and God's Kingdom and especially as it related to Jesus Christ. So Paul comes to the synagogue again, as was his pattern, and he preaches Christ. Verse 9. Interesting that it went on for three months, which is unusually long. The Jews usually got upset long before that, but these folks were somewhat tolerant.
But verse 9, "When some were hardened, — " finally, some of them hardened - "and believed not but spoke evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them." So after three months, they started blasting Christianity in front of the whole town, speaking evil of that way, those who had been hardened along the way. Instead of believing, instead of being softened, the longer Paul preached, the harder they got. And so finally, they blew the lid off; "and he departed from them and separated the disciples' disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus."
And some old manuscripts we have tell us that he taught there from 11:00 in the morning 'til 4:00 in the afternoon. Five hours of teaching. And in the 20th chapter, he says he's taught 'em night and day; so he must have come back at night. So he'd work in the morning, teach all afternoon, go back to work at 4:00; when he finished work at night, he'd go back to teach. In chapter 20 again, it says he went from house to house, so he probably spent the days in the school of Tyrannus and late at night in houses, teaching.
Teaching, teaching. Proclaiming, proclaiming, proclaiming. He was not only the apologist in verse 8, he was the pastor teacher. He was going to those that needed to be discipled.
Verse 10, "and this continued for the space of two years;" and the result, evangelism. "All they who dwelt in Asia heard the Word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks." The Word just spread like a grass fire. Tremendous. So proclamation.
Along with its proclamation was its confirmation, and this is where I would begin today. Verse 11. "When God moved into an area, He not only preached the Word but He confirmed the Word with miracles." This was a standard feature of apostolic preaching; we've seen it many times. Whenever the message was delivered, it was accredited by miracles. I mean, how you gonna believe it if there's not something to go along with it? Now, today, we believe a man's message 'cause he squares with this Book, right? We say about a guy, "He violates Scripture!" But in those days, there was no written New Testament; the only way to validify somebody was to see some kind of supernatural work. And so God confirmed the work of the apostles through miracles.
In Mark 16:20, just to read you one of many verses which could be read, "And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the Word with signs following." So God was in the business of confirming the Word through miracles. Now, this occurred in Hebrews 2, 3 and 4; it also occurred in 2 Corinthians 12:12 where he talks about the signs of an apostle. Notice verse 11; let's see what happened. First was the proclamation, then the confirmation; and "God wrought special miracles." Who did the miracles? God did. By the hands of Paul; He needed a human instrument. Paul would preach, and miracles would occur.
You say, "Why did God do this?" Well, He did this to convince unbelievers and those with weak faith of the authenticity of Paul's message. Now, notice interesting that it says He did it by the hands of Paul. Now, the people, of course, would see Paul and not really see God doing the work, especially those on the surface. And so they got the idea that this Paul was some kind of super character. And verse 12 says a very interesting thing. "So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them." And here's where you get this whole idea of healing cloths or handkerchiefs. But let me just back up and give you what this is saying. The people in Ephesus were very, very superstitious. And when they saw these miracles going on, coming out of Paul, they assumed the power was Paul's. And so the word "handkerchief" means "sweat cloth." Those people who work, artisans or anybody in the crafts or anybody who did manual labor in those days, carried about these cloths with which they would wipe their brow and sometimes tie around their head. Well, they got Paul's old, dirty, crummy sweat cloths! And they attached so much healing power to Paul, they figured if they get ahold of those sweat cloths, that that could work the same thing for them. And you know what? In spite of their superstition, God went ahead and did His miracles! Because God was in the business of confirming the Word, and He never let their superstitions violate what He was gonna do.
Remember the woman in Mark 5 who said, "If I can just touch the hem of Jesus' garment, I'll be healed." And she did, and she was. Why? God was going to do what He was going to do. And the same thing occurred in Acts 5 where the people in Jerusalem said, "If we can just get the sick under the shadow of Peter, they'll be well." And so these people had superstitions, but it didn't stop God from doing the miracles. And so they got Paul's old sweat cloths, and they got his aprons - he used some kind of apron that he wore when he did his work - and they put confidence in these. But whatever the superstition, God went about with the miracles in order to confirm the Word that Paul was preaching.
Now, beloved, the reason for miracles here is the same reason in the Gospel records, to confirm the Word. When Jesus did a miracle, why did He do that miracle? Did He do that miracle just to show off? Did He do that miracle just to make somebody well? No. I'll show you why; Acts 2:22. "Ye men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a Man approved of God among you by miracles, wonders, and signs." God wanted people to believe in Jesus, and so God did miracles through Him. That's the point. Supernatural.
Well, what happened as a result of these miracles? Well, look, it says in the middle of verse 12, "the diseases departed from them. They were physical healings." It's so ridiculous today for healers to offer - you can send for some healer's handkerchief and put it on your head and all that. That's such a perversion of a terrible superstition. In Ephesus, ridiculous. Here, the diseases departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them. Luke makes a distinction between physical disease, physical illness. Incidentally, the diseases departing is a medical term for an illness being removed. And it's an unusual medical term, but Luke, being a physician, would know it. And he makes a distinction between a disease and an evil spirit. I think that's significant. Not all illness is caused by demons. Luke makes that very clear.
So "God wrought special miracles, wonders and signs," and convinced the people, already swept up in magic, that the real wonders could be done in the Name of Jesus Christ. Boy, they must have thought that this Name of Jesus Christ was something else! And they did.
Let's look thirdly at the competition. We see a proclamation and the confirmation, now the competition. You know you're not gonna see this happen in the Name of Jesus without Satan moving in, right? Has to; always do. So here he comes. And oh, it's really good to see what happens to him. The people are seeing the Name of Jesus, it's so potent, demons are being cast out, diseases are being healed, and it's fantastic. Well, all of a sudden some local exorcists think they've got a new gimmick. Verse 13. "Certain of the vagabond Jews -" itinerant, traveling Jews- "exorcists took upon them to call over them who had evil spirits the Name of the Lord Jesus, saying 'we adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth!'" They thought they had a new gimmick. They had never seen anything like the power of this formula. They'd been using all kinds of gobbledygook and sorcery and so forth; and now they got this idea the Name of Jesus, and they thought, "Man, we have really got something! This magician Paul has pulled some stuff off that we've never even seen." So they were gonna jump on the bandwagon. Well, there's always people around like that. All these people around that take Christianity and make it something marketable.
Back in Acts 8, Simon saw the miracles that Phillip did and he wanted to buy it with money, didn't he? Wanted to buy the Holy Spirit, add to his bag of tricks. Peter says, "Your money perish with you." So here you have these guys, and they think, "Well, this is great. We'll get in on this and use it. Notice the word "exorcists." This is the only word occurs. It literally means, "those who expel demons by using sacred names." It's the conjuring up of demons out of somebody by the use of sacred formulas, using the names of gods. And the Jewish exorcists would do it in the Name of Jehovah God. You say, "Were these legitimate Jewish exorcists?" No, of course not. They were phonies. They were - they may have believed they were doing it in the Name of God, but they weren't. Satan doesn't cast himself out, right? So they weren't really casting out demons, but Satan may have given them the idea that they were so they'd keep perpetuating this stupidity, this error.
And we know this is what's going on today in the name of the Roman Catholic Church, in the name of so many other things historically, exorcisms have been done, but they haven't been valid. In the first place, there's no need for them, right? As I've told you before, if there's confession and repentance, they're unnecessary. If there's no confession and no repentance, they're ineffective. And so that we have all that exorcism in the history of the Roman Church and we have exorcisms going on in the occult things today and they had them then, it was Jewish exorcists tried to do it, none of it ever was legitimate.
Jesus mentioned it. It must have been somewhat common when He said in Matthew chapter 12, verse 27. He says, "If I cat out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your children cast them out?" And there he made inference to the fact that it was pretty common among the Jews to do this. So they had these vagabond exorcists going around with all their bag of tricks. And it was interesting; I think I told you last time that since the Name of God was an unmentionable name that the other people in the world must have thought they had some secret formula and a name that couldn't be mentioned. We've found some interesting writings that have come out of that part of history that indicate that some other people tried to figure out what the name of Jehovah was so that they could use it as a magical formula. No Jew would mention the name of Yahweh.
But anyway, these were fakes; but they had thought in their own minds perhaps that they were legitimate. Satan wanted them to think that. In the Book of Tobit, for example - this is to give you an example of Jewish exorcism - in the Book of Tobit, the heart and liver of a miraculously caught fish are burned in the ashes of incense, and the resulting smell and smoke are supposed to drive away the demons. Josephus, who was a very intelligent person, a noted Jewish historian, told of a cure in which a demon was drawn through the nostrils of a demoniac by the use of magic root supposedly prescribed by Solomon. And there are other rabbinical writers who reflect the same fanciful magic superstitions.
Now, it may have been true that in the Old Testament time, demons were expelled through prayer, fasting, if Matthew 17:21 is true and if it is belonging in the manuscript. It may be true, and I'm sure God did answer prayer and demons were cast out in the Old Testament. But this formula kind of thing was for unto God's Truth then and still is today.
Now, let me go a step further. No apostle after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ ever was hassled in exorcising demons. It was always a matter of authority. And that was apostolic authority, and as I've said before, we don't feel that today we have that authority. But today, we have a different kind of authority. I don't need to worry - I can't do much about demons in you, but every man can about himself. That's the issue. The apostolic day was confirming the Word; that was different. Today, every Christian has the resources to take care of his own problem. But I don't think we can walk up to unbelievers and cast demons out. If an unbeliever comes to Jesus Christ, He alone can cleanse. By faith.
Well, let's go to verse 13 and see what happens. "We adjure by Jesus whom Paul preacheth." The word "adjure" means exercise. Incidentally, a note on verse 13. They obviously were admitting they didn't know this Jesus; they just said the one that Paul preaches. They were riding on his coattails. Verse 14, "There were seven sons of Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, who did so." This guy Sceva must have been something. He had seven sons that went around casting out demons. Supposedly. And says he was the chief of the priests. You mean chief priest? Well, it's highly unlikely. He may have belonged to the high priestly family. But most likely he just gave himself that title. He just probably gave himself the title as a matter of prestige in his magical rites.
But look what happened. And it wasn't all seven of them, as we shall see in a moment, but the ones who did come to this particular guy, said, "We adjure by Jesus whom Paul preaches -" in verse 15 - "The evil spirit answered and said, 'Jesus I know and Paul I know, but who are you?'" I like that. "What do you guys think you're doing?" That's good. Their little magical effort blew up.
Interesting notes here, the evil spirit answered and said. Of course, evil spirits can speak with a human voice. In Isaiah 8:19, it says that there are mediums and wizards and demons that chirp and mutter. And the word there has to do with ventriloquism. They actually can speak with a human voice, and that's very, very common. And so the evil spirit spoke through the man in a voice that probably did not sound like the man's own voice but somewhat distorted, and said, "Jesus I know." You say, "Did the demons know Jesus?" Of course. Demons were all created at one time, and they were created originally as what? As angels. And they spent the whole occupation of their existence praising God; they knew Him well. They spent all of eternity past from the time of their creation with Him. Up until the fall, and once they fell, you can believe they knew who He was, too; they didn't lose that knowledge. This demon says, "Jesus I know," he wasn't kidding. And the word "know" that he uses means personal knowledge. He knew Jesus.
In Mark 1:23, "there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; he cried out 'Let us alone! What have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art Thou come to destroy us?'" They even know that they're gonna get it. And he said this, "I know Thee who Thou art the Holy One of God." They know Jesus. "Jesus I know," he said. In other words, if it was Jesus casting them out, they'd move. And then I like this: "And Paul I know." And here's a different word for "know," a lower degree. They didn't know Paul nearly as well as they knew Jesus, but the word was out among the demons, believe me. "Paul's a hot item, boys, watch it."
You know, I ran into that situation where the demons were in this person and they knew me, which was interesting. You really don't think about that, but all of a sudden you recognize there's a whole group of spirits in another world that know you. And that, first of all was kind a shocking thing, and secondly it was kind of exciting. I mean, I'm glad to know I made that much of an effect on their world so that they know me. I'm sure they're listening right now. Doesn't bother me a bit.
And anyway, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?" I like that. This demon felt no compulsion of power to obey. They may have used Jesus' name, but there wasn't any power in it. And what happened was amazing. Verse 16. "And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them and overcame them and prevailed against them so that they fled out of the house naked and bleeding."
Early streakers. But it was no lark, believe me.
"The man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them," sprang violently on them, "and overcame them." And "overcame," the word means to completely - completely - dominate. And the old manuscript also includes the word "both" here, which indicates there were probably only two of the seven there. "And overcame them both and prevailed against them." The demon was powerful, strong. And they fled out of the house naked and bleeding. Wounded.
And you know, this must have been a shock to them. Do you know what they were used to? They were used to perfect cooperation. Why? Because they were working for Satan all along; Satan would always want to just make them think that they could do this. See? Satan would make it look like they had such great success casting out demons. See? Why? 'Cause that just perpetuates the error. You understand that? If Satan can pull the wool over somebody's eyes and make them think that when he exists in error, he really exists in truth, they thought they were doing it in the Name of God. I'm sure all along. And Satan kept them thinking that and kept them trapped in the system. Counterfeit.
And so here, they have been so successful, all of a sudden this happens, and I imagine they couldn't figure out what went wrong! What's going on? When they had cast out demons before, they must have had a measure of success or they wouldn't have been professional at this. You say, "Did they really cast out demons before?" No, Satan gave them the illusion that they did. But boy, they didn't have any illusions this time. It was reality.
You say, "Well, John, I have a question." Well, it's the same one I have; I know what it is. If Satan is behind this whole thing, how come the demon didn't cooperate? Right? I mean, if Satan's going to really mess up Paul's ministry, you know what this demon should have done? He should have gone out, right? And everybody in town would have said, "Oh, they can do it, too." And all of a sudden, Christianity would have fallen into the same old pattern as all exorcism. It would have been just another gimmick, right? And Paul would have left town, and they would have all attached to this guy.
Remember the girl that followed Paul around saying, "these are the servants of the Most High God to show us the way of salvation," saying the truth. And Paul says, "Get out." Why? Because Paul does not want liars speaking truth because then people attach to liars and then they finally lead them away from the truth.
And so this demon didn't cooperate. Now, there're several possibilities. You say, "Why didn't the demon cooperate?" Well, I don't - I just have to speculate a little bit; it doesn't say. But I thought of several reasons. One, there was no satanic plot. These were just a bunch of guys acting independently of Satan. No, I can't believe that. Even though I thought of it, I don't believe it. You say why. Because these were Satan's agents, and they want to disrupt Paul's work. There had to be a plot. You say, "Well, why didn't the demon cooperate?" Well, somebody else might say, "Well, here's another possibility. Maybe they forgot to tell this demon to cooperate. Maybe they made the plot without including him." No. So maybe you might say, "No, he was a stubborn demon." No. You know why I don't think he went out? I don't think he went out because I think Christ controlled it. I think the Lord Jesus Christ messed up the whole plan by not letting that demon leave.
Luke 10:17 said, "Even the demons are subject to His Name." 1 Peter 3:22, "Angels and authorities are subject unto Him." He controlled that demon. Those guys wanted that demon to leave, Satan wanted that demon to leave, all the demons wanted that demon to leave, Christ said no, and he didn't leave. Why? Fouled up the plan.
Be careful, beloved, Satan has really deluded an awful lot of people in this whole area of exorcism. And Satan didn't work this time. That demon didn't leave, and those people ran out of there panicked. Boy, some people have had the idea like these exorcists that they've really done the job, really been casting out devils. Jesus said this. "Many shall say to Me in that last day, 'Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy Name?'" Matthew 7:22, "'Lord, have we not cast out demons in Thy Name? Lord, have we not done many wonderful works in Thy Name?' And I will say unto them, 'Depart from Me ye that work inequity. I never'" - what? "'knew you.'"
No. Well, competition. Satan brought the competition; Christ overruled. So we see the proclamation, confirmation, competition, quickly look at the conviction.
Boy, the results of this were great. Verse 17. "And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks swelling at Ephesus, and fear or awe fell on them all, and the Name of the Lord Jesus was magnified." You know what they said, "Boy, the Name of the Lord Jesus, don't mess with that name! Don't use that name with a trifle! Don't use it in vain! Don't play around with that name!" Even the unsaved began to recognize something stupendous about the Name of Jesus. That's exactly what God wanted. What a name! The Name at which every knee should bow. Well, the Name of Jesus was magnified and people saw with awe and with a sense of terror that that name was not to be trifled with. Beloved, that is true. Every time I hear somebody take the name of Jesus in vain, I just kind of cringe. That's not a name to trifle with. And those people saw that.
And verse 18 says, "Many that believed came and confessed and showed their deeds." It's a perfect participle, the word "believed," and it could mean those who had already believed and had already been Christians but had never given up their magic, or it could mean those who were then saved and then came and confessed. Either possibility. But anyway, these people who believed came, confessed, and showed their deeds. A most interesting phrase. "Showed their deeds" means they came and revealed their spells. According to magic theory, the only good spell is the one that's secret, and once you divulge the secret, the spell's no good. So everybody came and told all the secrets. They were giving up all their magic. Giving it up. The whole satanic game was over. They saw the truth of the power of Jesus; and they saw that magic didn't work, and in comparison to His name it was absolutely impotent. And revivals started siting. The Name of the Lord Jesus was magnified, and when the Name of the Lord Jesus is magnified, people will believe. You hear that? It's right. His Name was magnified in verse 17, and people believed and confessed, and their lives were transformed.
And they show you the character that transformation has got right down to practical things. Verse 19. "Many of those also who used magical arts brought their books together and burned them before all." They had a public burning. You say, "Was that a big deal?" They counted the price of them and found that 50,000 pieces of silver, all their parchments - the word "books" there, all their magical arts, all the gimmicks and formulas and all the paraphernalia, they burned. All the scrolls, all the secret formulas, they burned them. And the interesting thing, the word "burned" is imperfect. They kept on burning. I don't know how long the bonfire lasted. But they kept burning. You say, "How much is 50,000 pieces of silver?" With inflation and all of that, I couldn't begin to tell you. Drachmas. But maybe somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000 would be a start.
Well, the Word was proclaimed, confirmed, competed with; it was victorious and Satan lost out; and then conviction came through the Word. Lastly, the words "domination," verse 20. "So mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed." Beloved, you know this. In your life, where the Word of God dominates, there's victory. You know that in this church, as long as the Word of God dominates, there'll be victory. That's the pattern. That's the pattern. The church established with the Word, the individual established with the Word is clean and victorious over the enemy.
Well, I just can't read verse 20 without having thrills when I see the Word of God prevail. Satan in all of his foe - in all His power, I should say - amassed as for against the Word cannot prevail. Cannot prevail.
Beloved, I hope and pray that you're saturated by the Word, that you may know victory, the victory that comes only when you are. Let's pray.
Father, we're thankful again this morning for the Word of God. We recognize how rich we are because we have it. We thank You for what we've learned again this morning in this time of study, and we're so thankful for the example we see as the apostle Paul, so tireless, so fearless, so bold. Father, we know that we cannot be as he, an apostle. We cannot go through the things that he did in the miraculous sense, but God, thank You that the same power that was spent through him is in us. And Father, we recognize that Satan is a defeated foe and because that Thou art in us, we have power to overcome him at every point.
Lord God, save us from exaggerations, and save us from overemphasis on wrong things, and save us from being plagued by the negatives and help us to be lost in the positive knowledge of being Thy Son. We give You the praise in Jesus' name. Amen.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
You've all seen those Fashion Police-type shows where a panel of gossip columnists, minor celebrities, and comedians rate and rip apart celebrity fashion. Who wore it best? Who wore it worst? Who forgot to wear it? We here at Nerdist like to showcase our own particular sense of style in a weekly feature we call Cosplay Friday.
As always, I've spent hours (I'm REALLY slow at typing) searching the web and compiling this weeks best/worst/funniest/weirdest cosplay for your viewing pleasure. And no offense to the aforementioned fashionistas, but EVERYTHING looks better with a cape on it.
This Ezio (Assassin's Creed) cosplay by xcalixax is so good that we'll forgive her for seemingly losing one of her daggers.
DestinyCosplay reminds us that Pokemon X/Y is coming soon, and that Ash only holds one Pokeball at a time and is super lazy.
A tired Stan Lee, too worn out from his appearances in 14 Marvel movies this year, hands over the reigns. (Sent to us by Mini-Stan's dad!)
This Rei cosplayer (SushiMonster) is doing double duty: both looking great and making sure that wall doesn't come falling down.
Lavi (D.Gray-Man) says, "Psssh. Not only am I holding up this wall, I'm doing it with one hand".
Guy on the left of this group of Sprites: part of the gang, or best photobomb ever?
Don't blink or you'll miss this great Doctor Who cosplay by lianthus. (See what I did there? I may just be as clever as my parents think, after all.)
What are these Kuroko No Basket cosplayers staring at? Wait… It's me! *Realizes he's a basketball. * *Melts into puddle of purple liquid*
deviantART member Merytmut says, "Looks like no one will ever confuse Link and Zelda again". She also laughs ominously.
This Attack on Titan cosplayer proves that the only thing that can defeat giant humanoid monsters is A LOT of eye shadow.
Dig our choices? Got a cool cosplay you want to show off with the world? Kindly leave a quemment, email me or hit me up on the twitter machine.
Want even more content like this? Get the TOKYOPOP newsletter delivered to your inbox!… You lucky so and so's.


text:
Self-control / Une maîtrise de soi
Copyright is about trying to control others; free culture is about controlling yourself.
Le droit d'auteur essaie de contrôler les autres; la culture libre représente le choix de chercher la maîtrise de soi.
During the summer and fall when orcas congregate to feed on salmon runs, males leave their groups to engage in homosexual behavior, playing with many other males in hour-long sessions.
To learn more about the series which this painting is a part of, Crime Against Nature, visit the articles in this section of my blog.
Pendant l'été et l'automne, lorsque les orques se rassemblent pour se nourrir de la migration des saumons, les mâles quittent leurs groupes pour prendre part à des échanges homosexuels et jouer avec d'autres mâles dans des séances qui peuvent durer une heure.
Pour en savoir plus sur la série dont ce tableau fait partie, Le crime contre nature, regardez les vidéos dans cette section de mon blog.
Although it may not seem so, Cézanne's painting and the bathers of countless other artists pointed the way for my image of orcas frolicking. Once I thought of these works, it wasn't difficult to compose a painting to represent the erotic playfulness of the killer whales: I knew I needed only show them from many different angles and the sense of joy and warmth would be evident.
Même si ça ne se voit pas tout de suite, ce tableau de Cézanne et les baigneurs de nombreux autres artistes ont ouvert la voie pour mon image d'orques gambadants. Une fois que j'ai pensé à ces œuvres, il n'était pas difficile de composer un tableau pour représenter l'éroticisme enjoué des orques: je savais que je n'avais qu'à les montrer sous de nombreux angles différents et la vivacité serait évidente.
- Why copyright and creativity are not separate issues
- Learning from copying / Apprendre avec l'imitation
- Taking the "property" out of intellectual property
- Using other people's images / Utiliser les images de quelqu'un d'autre
- Comment je protège mes œuvres d'art contre la copie sur l'Internet
- About competition / Sur la concurrence
(4) Comments / Commentaires: Self-control / Une maîtrise de soi
I believe copyright issues also involve fear or lack of self confidence. Artists that are afraid they're not all that unique are afraid someone else will be more successful (financially) with a similar idea. Fear, lack of self confidence and controlling others… sounds like a lot of fun to me!
I know, right? Who would want to feel that way?!
Hello, ma'am.
First of all, allow me to say that I think it's great that you rather say positive, open things that are conducive to good discussion when someone violates your copy rights. I agree with you; raging about copyright violation, though it MAY get your point across, will more than likely not reflect all that well on you.
I think, however, that you may be a bit too lenient. Copyright may be about controlling both your property and about controlling people, sure, but the part about controlling people does not have to necessarily mean something negative. I've come across artists who've had there art stolen, printed unto t-shirts, cups, playing cards, etc. without either attributing the artwork to the respectful artist, or without even alerting them of the use of their art for monetary gain. When this happens, I think it'd be ridiculous for the artist to not take legal action. That kind of controlling people is only reasonable, no?
Furthermore, I see perhaps the slight similarity between your work of the orcas and that of Cézanne, but only because you pointed it out. Otherwise I never would have guessed (the compositions aren't THAT similar, and your art styles obviously differ considerably). Do you mean to say that this is copyright infringement? If it is ( I am not entirely privy to every detail of how copyright works), then obviously conducive discussion would be the reasonable response from the artist.
Sorry for my long-winded comment. I just had stuff to say on this post. I love your art, and though I may not always agree with all of your views, I enjoy considerably following your posts. You give great advice, and you always make me think.
@Juan: To my mind, the problems with using the legal system to pursue your copyrights are:
1) most of us don't actually have the money for a lawsuit, especially when we're pitted against companies who have gaggles of lawyers on staff just in case.
2) the whole concept of copyright is wrong.
That second point deserves a bit more explanation. Imitation (not innovation) is the main mechanism for the evolution of culture (more on that here), and copyright interrupts imitation. It does so by actually shutting down imitation when it happens, as with "cease and desist" letters and lawsuits, but it also does so conceptually. By that I mean that sometime art doesn't even get made because artists are afraid that it would be considered sampling and that they'd become embroiled in a lawsuit.
But what does this have to do with the artists you know who've been ripped off? Everything. To my mind, if you use the broken copyright system to take care of any of your problems, you're saying that bad system is logical and should continue to exist. But it shouldn't. Copyright is damaging to creativity. That's why artists who feel they have a genuine complaint should instead focus on leveraging their social currency.
As for my Cézanne example, it wasn't the strongest visual I could use, I agree. I was trying to illustrate where copyright goes in our minds, though I didn't verbalize about it well. As I said above, copyright as a concept becomes this thing that paralyzes many of us. We don't fully understand copyright, so we won't even try a things because we wouldn't want to maybe violate a law that we don't totally get even though we maybe really ought to since it's ostensibly meant to protect us artists.
There. I wrote a big one back.


text:
I See Good Movies
In defense of M. Night Shyamalan.
It's shaping up to be the worst summer of M. Night Shyamalan's charmed career. Nearly a decade has passed since The Sixth Sense catapulted him onto the Hollywood A-list, and the critics have been souring on his twist endings, earnest mysticism, and crowd-pleasing thrills. His last film, 2004's The Village, received generally derisive reviews, and the about-to-be-released Lady in the Water has been dogged by lousy buzz ever since the script-shopping stage, when Shyamalan bolted to Warner Brothers after executives at Disney, his longtime home, didn't show sufficient respect for his brilliance. Worse, he's using the movie as a laboratory for his ambitions as a thespian: After laboring through cameo roles in his previous films, M. Night has handed himself a major part in this one, as (what else?) a struggling writer out to change the world.
All of this would be reason enough to tag Lady in the Water as a career-deflating bust. But Shyamalan has another cross to bear—the tell-all book that he foolishly allowed Sports Illustrated's Michael Bamberger to write, about Night's heroic struggles to get Lady made. The book is the mother of all embarrassments: If Night and his movies were suddenly ripped out of this plane of existence by a rogue wormhole and only The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale survived, it would be treasured by future generations as proof that those whom the gods destroy they first make petty, vain, and ridiculously insecure.
Not that Bamberger meant for it to turn out that way. At times, his book reads like The Devil Wears Prada, rewritten to be more sympathetic to the boss's point of view. Shyamalan is a "savant," an "athlete" of cinema beset by fools and blunderers: the philistines at Disney, led by then-president Nina Jacobson, his longtime producer (Night "had witnessed the decay of her creative vision right before his own wide-open eyes"); the critics and filmgoers who dislike his movies because they envy his success; his new assistant, who Bamberger frets might not know "exactly how her lactose-intolerant boss liked his hot chocolate." Elsewhere, the book resembles American Son, Richard Blow's memorialization of his man-crush on John F. Kennedy Jr. "I go down the New Age route skeptically," Bamberger writes of his first meeting with Night, "but I felt a powerful force coming off the guy. … If he had these powers, where did they come from?" Later, while marveling over Night's ability to know exactly when to let him read the script for Lady, Bamberger blurts out, "His timing was improbable. …I had never been so well managed—and I don't mean that crassly—in all my life."
What emerges through the haze of hagiography is a study in egomania and insecurity—the artist as pathetic prima donna, whose "Oscar nominations and his money and his farm and his beautiful wife and his adorable girls" aren't enough to keep him from pitching a fit when a Disney executive puts off reading his script to take her son to a birthday party. If you hate Shyamalan's movies, The Man Who Heard Voices will leave you feeling vindicated; if you like them, you'll find yourself wishing that you didn't.
Better, then, if nobody reads it at all, because while Shyamalan may be a narcissist with delusions of grandeur, he's also a filmmaker of rare talent and creativity (these are hardly mutually exclusive categories, after all), and however lousy Lady in the Water proves to be, he deserves to survive this summer of embarrassment and live to film again. He's not a Dylan or a Disney, to pick just two names from the roster of ridiculous comparisons that Bamberger fastens on, and his potential has often gone frustratingly unfulfilled in the nine years since Haley Joel Osment told Bruce Willis about all the dead people he kept spotting. But Shyamalan's missteps have been interesting, his mistakes worth a second look, and his obsession with the integrity of his own artistic visions, however irritating, has distinguished him from nearly all his young-Hollywood competitors.
It's worth comparing Shyamalan's career choices, for instance, with those of Bryan Singer, another wunderkind director whose big break was a dark-horse hit with a twist ending. Since establishing himself with The Usual Suspects in 1995, Singer has essentially reinvented himself as a director of comic-book blockbusters, a man to be trusted with massive budgets and well-known franchises. He's been making movies for the studios, in other words, instead of doing what Shyamalan has tried to do—which is to persuade the studios to make movies for him.
Of course there's nothing wrong, per se, with directing the two X-Men movies and Superman Returns, and Singer deserves all the kudos he's received for crafting high-standard summer entertainment. He's hardly alone, too, in taking the tent-pole-movie career path: Doug Liman started off with Swingers and now handles blockbusters like The Bourne Identity and Mr. & Mrs. Smith; Christopher Nolan went from helming Memento to revitalizing the Batman franchise; Sam Raimi leaped from the dark intimacy of A Simple Plan to the director's chair for the Spider-Man saga. This summer's highest-grossing movie to date, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, is the work of another of Shyamalan's contemporaries, the versatile and talented Gore Verbinski.
But this path comes with a price. You find yourself making sequels and franchise pictures rather than finding (or writing) new and unusual stories of your own. You labor to elevate essentially flimsy material rather than starting off with something deeper and more complicated. And even when you raise the bar, you aren't raising it terribly high: For all the poise and polish and "subtext" of Singer's superhero movies, nothing he's done lately rises much above the level of a well-oiled July afternoon thrill ride, let alone his early work in Suspects.
Shyamalan, by contrast, doesn't make sequels or franchises (he turned down a chance to script Indiana Jones IV). He doesn't adapt Dan Brown best sellers, or Robert Ludlum potboilers, or Disney theme-park rides. He doesn't rely on CGI, or even use it much—and whilehe seems to love comic books as much as any of his Marvel and DC-adapting peers, his own superhero movie, Unbreakable, did something different and more interesting. Unbreakable feels incomplete at times, like a shard of a larger, better motion picture, and it doesn't use Bruce Willis' essential flatness and opacity nearly as well as The Sixth Sense did. But for all its flaws, it succeeds in bringing the superhero genre down to earth in ways that no Superman or Batman film could even think about attempting (consider the remarkable moment when Willis discovers his superhuman strength while lifting weights in the basement with his son). By example, the movie also hints that Singer's more conventional comic-book movies—and Raimi's and Nolan's, for that matter—are a good way to make a living, but a creative dead end.
Similarly, Steven Spielberg was widely praised for stripping last summer's War of the Worlds of countless genre tropes—panicked generals, heroic presidents, mad scientists, and so on. But it was Shyamalan's Signs, three years earlier, that was actually the more daring space-invader movie, in its attempt to meld science-fiction and horror by bringing the aliens home, to a single farmhouse and family, and using them as the sum of all our metaphysical fears. Sure, it lost momentum in the last act, with a literal deus ex machina and a less-than-frightening computer-generated alien, but then again, the third-act problem is one that no alien-invasion movie has managed to solve, Spielberg's least of all.
Even The Village, Shyamalan's least-liked movie to date, has a great deal to recommend it. A weird, slight, and beautiful fable about utopia and modernity, it was dressed up as another twist-ending zapper and marketed as a Sixth Sense-style thriller, which left critics and audiences alike feeling understandably cheated. But if you strip away the studio hype and the director's showman tics, it makes an intriguing counterpoint to his earlier movies—as a partial rebuke to their credulous supernaturalism, perhaps, and as an attempt (by a director as sex-shy as Spielberg) to grope, with his blind heroine, through the comforts and terrors of fairy tales toward the darker wisdom of adulthood.
In The Village, as in all his films, Shyamalan seems to be aiming for something, amid our summers of high-grossing superhero movies and our winters of little-seen Oscar-bait projects, that's increasingly rare these days: a marriage of entertainment and art, of mass-market tastes and elite sensibilities. This is a hard combination to pull off, as his stumbles have demonstrated, but it's precisely the goal that the film industry, home to our last mass art form, ought to be aspiring to. So, Shyamalan deserves credit, despite his vanity and his missteps—not because he's succeeding, necessarily, but because he's willing to keep trying and unwilling to take his place with those timid, highly compensated directors who know neither victory nor defeat.


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February 13, 2013 14:05 ET
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Feb. 13, 2013) - With the goal of helping readers discover their own sense of style and fashion, the writers and photographers of the Speaking of Style blog are pleased to announce the launch of a new site, speakingofstyle.ca, which was designed and developed by nvision solutions, a leading Toronto digital marketing agency.
"With most fashion sites rehashing the same news, there's a style vacuum out there and we want to fix that," says Matthew Wong, co-founder of Speaking of Style. "The misconception is that style comes from wearing a label. But everyone can put together pieces from their existing wardrobe and create a personal style. And we use the blog to help them do that."
Built on a customized WordPress platform, the new blog features a unique combination of technologies, including post-tag taxonomy, auto-photo gallery creation and dynamic image resizing, to make it simple for non-technical blog authors to add articles and photos in a way that makes it easy for readers to quickly find the information that will help them.
"Our goal was to let the articles and photography be the 'wow factor' by capturing the unique Speaking of Style vibe, without over-designing the site," says Kevin Doherty, nvision's Creative Director for the site's development. "We worked with Matthew and his team and focused on the audience and the goals for the blog. The resulting synergy produced a site that exceeded everyone's expectations."
Response to the new blog has exceeded expectations too. Wong notes that traffic to the site jumped following the launch and Speaking of Style has recently been approached by major brands, including Zara, Stolichnaya and Budweiser.
"The new site makes us look professional and credible. We have received really positive feedback and so much more interaction," says Wong, who added "we are fortunate to have such good writers, and we're really proud of our photography. The new site helps all of that stand out in a really positive way."
Looking to the future, Wong sees many opportunities for the new blog to help Speaking of Style evolve and be more relevant to its growing audience. "The platform lets us not only help readers develop their personal style, but they can express their fashion sense and show us what they've discovered by adding their own comments, pictures and videos, and we're really excited about that."
About Speaking of Style
Speaking of Style is a Toronto-based website that helps readers discover, develop and enhance their personal style. We take inspiration from helping people understand that their sense of fashion and style comes from within and not from a label or runway.
About nvision solutions
From concepts and strategies, to design and implementation, nvision builds premium websites, graphic design and digital marketing campaigns for its many local, national and international clients. nvision has assembled a dedicated team of branding experts, creative professionals, copywriters, illustrators, designers, developers and search engine marketing experts to offer complete digital marketing services to its customers.
Speaking of StyleMatthew WongMatthew [at] speakingofstyle.canvision solutionsGeorge Arabian1-877-943-2985info [at] nvisionsolutions.canvision solutionsKevin Doherty1-877-943-2985info [at] nvisionsolutions.ca
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Back to All Events
Earlier Event: April 2Bible Study Fellowship Leader Meeting
Later Event: April 3Adult Education
971 16th Street Southeast Rochester, MN 55904
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Welcome to the life and ministry of Church of the Savior. We are a Christian gathering inviting you to discover what life looks like as together we learn to follow Jesus, build community and share hope.
9:30 Sunday Worship


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Panthers and Tigers square off on the pitch
ABERDEEN — Fans of high school soccer were in for a real treat on Thursday afternoon as the Tigers and Panthers squared off on the pitch in what turned out to be a highly entertaining contest between the Bingham County rivals.
In a match that was played about as evenly as one could imagine, the teams combined for 3 goals over a six minute span on the play clock, with Aberdeen coming away with a 2-1 victory that propelled them onto the top of the district standings.
"For the first two days of harvest I think that we did pretty good," Aberdeen head coach Nate Tracy said. "We were missing three players, including our best defensive player and we had guys showing up just before kick off from their jobs but they came out and did what they know how to do."
The teams battled back and forth for the first 38 minutes of play when Aberdeen solved the riddle that is Snake River goal keeper Tyler Roll. Executing a corner kick Ezequiel Uribe placed a ball just over the leaping Roll. Jose Medez snuck in behind the play and headed the ball into the back of the net for the games first score.
One minute later the Tigers were awarded another corner kick and on this occasion Uribe took care of business all by himself as he bent a perfect shot around the defense, caroming off the back post and into the net for a 2-0 Tiger lead.
For most squads giving up a pair of goals in the final 2 minutes of the half could decimate them for the remainder of the contest.
Not on this night however as the Panthers came out of the break pumped up for the comeback attempt.
"There really wasn't a lot of talk at half time," Snake River head coach Trevor Peterson said. "There were a few jokes and I know that the kids know what to do. They know how to play and they just needed to get excited, play happy and play hard."
That formula worked early for the Panthers as Cooper Peterson scored in the 44th minute of play for the Panthers lone goal.
Each team had several opportunities to add to the final goal tally but a combination of just missed shots and superb defense ruled the remainder of the game, ending in the Tigers win.
Snake River girls 8, Aberdeen 0
ABERDEEN — The offensive juggernaut that is Snake River girls soccer turned in another dominating performance on Thursday afternoon as they proved themselves to be inhospitable house guests with a 8-0 victory over the home standing Lady Tigers of Aberdeen.
"As I stand back in the goal spectating I notice that the girls are playing really well as a team," Snake River goal keeper Courtney Steinbaugh said. "We are playing really well as a unit and if we keep it up we can go to state."
Fellow captain Stefaine Monschau concurred with her team mate saying, "We did a great job with good passes and good runs but defensively we didn't have a lot to do."
Indeed a short handed Aberdeen squad continued their season long power outage on the offensive end but that didn't deter the eleven Lady Tigers who dressed down for the game to put up their best efforts until the final whistle.
"We started with 11 girls today and we played with 10 for awhile," Aberdeen head coach Wayne Adams said. "We had a couple of girls quit to work full time in the harvest but the girls came out and played hard, they really played their guts out. There is just no quit in them."


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United Air Lineshas plans to purchase 150 narrow body Boeing 737 aircraft for delivery between 2013 and 2022, its parent company United Continental Holdings announced recently.
The Chicago-based airline's new aircraft order includes 100 Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft and 50 Boeing 737-900ER planes. The move is part of on-going efforts to modernize its fleet.
The new aircraft will replace older, less fuel-efficient planes and will reduce the airline's operating costs and enhance the customer experience, United Continental said in a statement.
"This order is a major step in building the world's leading airline, and we look forward to offering our customers the modern features and reliability of new Boeing airplanes, while also making our fleet more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly," United's President and CEO Jeff Smisek said. "New aircraft deliveries support our flexible fleet plan, permitting us to tailor future capacity up or down, based on changes in demand or other market conditions."
United, which will begin taking delivery of the Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes in 2018, is the North American launch customer for this aircraft model.
In South Florida, United operates flights to and from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International, Palm Beach International and Miami International airports.
Delivery of the Boeing 737-900 aircraft, which will sport the Boeing Sky Interior, will begin in late 2013.
"These new aircraft, combined with our new widebody aircraft already on order and our existing fuel-efficient aircraft, will solidify United's future fleet as one of the most efficient and environmentally responsible fleets among our global competitors," said Smisek.


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You can find full details on our packages in our media kit.


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Ipswitch WS_FTP Professional is a simple, feature packed, easy to use FTP client for transferring files over FTP, SSL, SSH or HTTP/S protocols. WS_FTP Professional provides a high level of security with support for 256 bit AES encryption, OpenPGP encryption and FIPS cryptography to ensure your files are protected through-out the transfer process and comes with a variety of ways to automate tasks such as email notification, synchronisation, compression, post-transfer event support and scheduling.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he remains very hopeful that Congress will not put his administration in the position of having to consider prioritizing debt payments in the event of a federal debt default.
Obama told a news conference that the United States has a lot of debt obligations beyond paying its Treasury bond holders and that the government's failure to pay other bills would also hurt U.S. creditworthiness.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Jeff Mason; Editing by Sandra Maler)


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Drum Kit Lessons in St. Edmundsbury (including Bury St Edmunds and Haverhill)
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Phraya Chaisunthon Monument (Chao Somphamit)
It is located in front of the Kalasin Post Office. The life-sized monument is made from bronze in a standing position with the right hand holding a teapot, and left hand holding a magic sword.
Phutthasathan Phu Po
It is located in the compound of Wat In Prathan Phon, Tambon Phu Po, approximately 28 kilometres from Kalasin province. Travel along Highway No. 213 and then at approximately Km. 59, turn left to Ban Chot – Ban Na Chan – Na Khok Khwai for 16 kilometres. The site is where two ancient reclining Buddha images of the Dvaravati period carved on the cliff can be seen. They are the sacred images highly revered by the people of Kalasin and nearby provinces. The first image is at the foothill and the second one is on Phu Po. Apart from storing sacred Buddha images, Phu Po also features beautiful nature perfect for rest and relaxation. There is an annual ceremony to celebrate the reclining Buddha images in April every year.
Lam Pao Wildlife Conservation Development and Promotion Stat
Suan Sa-on is located near Lam Pao Dam with a total area of 1,420 rai. It is quite an abundant deciduous dipterocarp forest. Inside is an open zoo in which there are indigenous wild animals including 130 bantengs, which are rare, and also other fauna like gibbons, monkeys, various kinds of domestic and migratory birds, along with nature trails. Suan Sa-on is open every day from 7:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., free of charge. Visitors who want to stay or do camping at the station have to ask for permission in advance by sending a letter to the Lam Pao Wildlife Conservation Development and Promotion Station at P.O. Box 120, Amphoe Mueang, Kalasin 46000; or Director of the Wildlife Conservation Office, National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department. Tel. 0 2562 0760.


text: Home- Faculty For Faculty A resource page for faculty members to quickly find webpages, forms, and information. Menu Menu Collaboration for Enhanced Learning Summer Research Fellows Profile Pages Your faculty bio page is one important way to share knowledge with the broader academic community and to illustrate the interesting work that happens in our classrooms and labs. Please take a minute to update your profile. Find your profile in the directory Instructions for updating your page Top Resources Registrar's office Classroom AV instructions Portal Information for faculty and chairs Gmail Moodle Bookstore Libraries Academic calendar Centers and Institutes Center for Freedom and Western Civilization Center for Language and Brain Center for Learning, Teaching, and Research Center for Women's Studies Lampert Institute Picker Interdisciplinary Science Institute Shaw Wellness Institute Upstate Institute W.M. Keck Center for Language Study Writing and Speaking Center Research Colgate funding opportunities External funding opportunities (Grants Office) Post-award grants and sponsored research Funding opportunities Working at Colgate Benefits Payroll Employee discounts Travel policy Emergency closing policy Spousal/partner employment How Do I ...? Reserve a room Contact the ITS helpline Use technology in the classroom Update my web profile myself Get help with my web profile: firstname.lastname@example.com Suggest a news story or make a photo request Update my title online Meet or lecture with alumni Sign up for emergency alerts Use Picker Art Gallery resources in class Charter a bus for group travel Campus Life Campus calendar Merrill House faculty club Trudy Fitness Center CU Well - Wellness Program Recreational facilities hours Religious holidays Provost/Dean of the Faculty Faculty meeting dates University housing for faculty Reporting harassment Technology ITS Helpline: 315-228-7111 ITS help online Use technology in the classroom Update your online profile Lynda.com training Faculty Collaboration for Enhanced Learning Summer Research Fellows RELATED LINKS Intellectual Engagement RIGOROUS ACADEMICS Collaborative research by highly regarded faculty is a Colgate trademark. Off-Campus Study OFF-CAMPUS STUDY Colgate has one of the most robust off-campus study programs in the country. Career Services CAREER SERVICES Staff members and dedicated alumni play a key role in students' career exploration. Lucky 13 LUCKY 13 Find out why 13 is the most popular number on campus.


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(Dec. 3, 2010) On November 24, 2010, Act 78 of 2009, repealing the legal basis for Panama's membership in the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), entered into force. The law was adopted on November 30, 2009. (Ley 78 de 2009 que deroga las leyes que aprueban los instrumentos internacionales relativos al Parlamento Centroamericano, 26425 GACETA OFICIAL (Dec. 11, 2009), http://www.asamblea.gob.pa/APPS/LEGISPAN/PDF_NORMAS/2000/2009/2009_570
Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli had announced before he took office, having made it a campaign issue, that "he would make it a point to withdraw Panama from the regional body" because he considered it to be ineffective. (Panama Officially Withdraws from Central American Parliament, PRENSA.COM (Nov. 24, 2010), World News Connection online subscription database, Doc. No. 201011241477.1_8bea0048f85b4a83; Panama: Disagreement over Decision to Quit Central American Parliament, PRENSA.COM (Nov. 23, 2010), World News Connection online subscription database, Doc. No. 201011231477.1_d41f002787b6e125.) The government reportedly had to resort to the adoption of Act 78 after it refused the option, put forward by Guatemala and Nicaragua, that would have required unanimous agreement by the other PARLACEN Member States in order for Panama to withdraw. (The Parlacen Lost a Member for the Withdrawal of Panama [Google-translation into English], TODANOTICIA.COM (Nov. 24, 2010), http://www.todanoticia.com/20823/parlacen-pierde-miembro-retirada-panama
Panama's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) pointed out in a statement issued on November 23, 2010, that "a note presenting the Panamanian government's official resignation, in accordance with the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties," had been submitted to the Foreign Ministry of Guatemala 12 months previous. The Panamanian government also reaffirmed in the statement that the country's "withdrawal from PARLACEN is a sovereign and irrevocable decision of the Panamanian State." (Panama Officially Withdraws from Central American Parliament, supra; Press Release, MOFA, Comunicado Oficial: Salida de Panamá del PARLACEN (Nov. 23, 2010), http://mire.gob.pa/noticias/comunicado-oficial-salida-de-panama-del-parl
Panama joined PARLACEN 16 years ago under the presidency of Guillermo Endara (1990-1994). Act 78 repeals the law passed on May 16, 1994, that approved Panama's accession to the Treaty Establishing PARLACEN and Other Political Bodies (Tratado Constitutivo del Parlamento Centroamericano y Otras Instancias Políticas, signed in Guatemala on October 2, 1987). (Secretaría General del Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana, Instrumentos Jurídicos del Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana (Jan. 2010), at 281-288, http://www.sica.int/busqueda/Libros.aspx?IDItem=2865
4&IdCat=35&IdEnt=1&Idm=1&IdmStyle=1.) Act 78 also nullifies a January 27, 2005, law sanctioning the Fourth Protocol to the Treaty (signed in Guatemala on February 26, 2004), which supported the accession of the Dominican Republic to PARLACEN. (Id. at 296; The Parlacen Lost a Member for the Withdrawal of Panama, supra.)
On November 22, 2010, four members of Panama's opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), who are also members of PARLACEN, submitted a letter to the MOFA stating their decision to remain members despite the government's decision. One of the letter's signatories, Dorindo Cortez, who since October has been has been serving as Chairman of the Board of Directors of PARLACEN for the period 2010-2011, "explained that the current members were elected for five-year terms, and Panama must comply with that commitment." Cortez also stated "that the Central American Court of Justice [Corte Centroamericana de Justicia, CCJ] ruled that Panama may not unilaterally decide to leave Parlacen." (Panama: Disagreement over Decision to Quit Central American Parliament, supra; Resolución de la consulta de la CCJ sobre denuncia Panamá, PARLACEN website, http://www.parlacen.org.gt/ (last visited Nov. 25, 2010) [scroll down right-hand side of webpage].)
Cortez announced that PARLACEN will ask the Court, which issued its ruling in October 2010, to execute it. The CCJ held that Panama cannot "denounce or withdraw unilaterally from the Treaty Establishing the Central American Parliament" and ordered Panama "to refrain from unilateral actions that violate the principles and purposes of the Central American Integration System (SICA) [Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana]." (The Parlacen Lost a Member for the Withdrawal of Panama, supra;Panama-Guide, Central American Court of Justice Orders Panama to Remain in PARLACEN, PLAYACOMMUNITY.COM (Oct. 22, 2010), http://www.playacommunity.com/panama-news/panama-news-wire/central-ameri
can-court-of-justice-orders-panama-to-remain-in-parlacen–201010223516/; see also SICA in Brief, SICA Portal, http://www.sica.int/sica/sica_breve_en.aspx?IdEnt=401&IdmStyle=2&
;Idm=2 (last visited Nov. 25, 2010).)
PARLACEN was established in 1991; the five Member States have been Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador; and Panama. The Dominican Republic has "Special Observer" status and Mexico, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and the Republic of China (on Taiwan) are "Permanent Observers." (The Central American Parliament: PARLACEN, PARLACEN website, http://www.parlacen.org.gt/documentos/PPT_english.pdf (last visited Nov. 25, 2010).


text: The visitor parking lot is managed by Parking Solutions. Hourly fees apply ($1 per ½ hour; $4 maximum). Discounted parking passes can be purchased in books of 10 for $10, which allows you to park 10 times in the visitor lot for only $1 per visit, regardless of how long you stay. Parking passes can be purchased at the security desk on the second floor (next to Labor & Delivery). Valet parking is also available at the main entrance during regular business hours for a $7 fee.